Parents should know what happens in their children’s schools and they should be informed immediately if their child is experiencing or mental health struggles while they are at school. This is basic common sense. Unfortunately, Madison Metropolitan School District adopted an update to their policies and guidelines handbook in 2018 allowing and encouraging teachers to deceive parents of children struggling with gender dysphoria. Under these guidelines, students are able to socially “transition” behind their parents back, adopting a new name and using opposite-sex pronouns while at school without their parents ever knowing. The district encouraged teachers to exploit a legal loophole in order to conceal information from parents by filing “Gender Support Plans” in their personal notes instead of in the student’s official records. Earlier this year, a group of concerned parents filed a lawsuit challenging this harmful policy, and last week the court issued an injunction prohibiting the school district from deceiving parents. The injunction will be in place until the court rules on the case.
A policy that encourages children to live a double life and enables teachers to hide important information about a child’s mental health from their parents is unhealthy and troubling. In an expert affidavit, Dr. Stephen Levine wrote,
For a child to live radically different identities at home and at school, and to conceal what he or she perceives to be his or her true identity from parents, is psychologically unhealthy in itself, and could readily lead to additional psychological problems.
Dr. Levine also pointed out that “affirmation” of a child’s “gender identity” does not improve mental health outcomes, but that encouraging “transition” at an early age can have lifelong consequences.
The Madison school district’s guidelines are a serious attack on parents and are not in the best interest of children who are struggling with gender dysphoria. Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty deputy counsel Luke Berg said that the court’s injunction “sends a pretty clear warning to the district about its policy, that the policy is concerning and problematic, that the district can’t conceal important information from parents.”
It should go without saying that schools should not lie to parents or conceal important information about their child’s mental health from them. Somehow, Madison Metropolitan School District missed this memo. The court’s injunction is good news for students and families, and a hopeful sign for the case as it moves forward.
(Image: Flickr, Janet Ramsden, CC BY 2.0)
